very relaxed attitude DR - its not one club in Belfast but 9! and 3 of them are Div 1 sides - alarms bells have to be ringing loudly

its not a relaxed attitude from myself you should be addressing rather its the ones of the clubs.

If they are able to field at underage successfully then they need to be asking the hard questions of themselves as to what they are doing wrong that this is happening.

looking around to Gaelfast wont solve the problem, it will take years to really kick in - if its a success that is - and at that it wont guarantee that it will make kids stay on after U16

100% correct. The hard questions need to be asked at the highest level within the county. Kids at 16/17/18 years of age don't suddenly disappear. They move to other hobbies/interests that fit into their busy lives more easily. At minor level within Antrim, how many games will they get (in either code) versus number of training sessions? Local soccer and rugby clubs guarantee a game every Saturday. We simply aren't doing that. Kids want to play matches.

We need a Belfast action plan focused on late teens. If we wait on Gaelfast we r waiting 10 years plus.Picking up on an earlier post these issues are not debated enough as there seems to be an attitude that if you speak up you are just a slabber

"Kids at 16/17/18 years of age don't suddenly disappear." I believe that one of the main contributing factors to the problem , is the exam system. Young players are faced with exams from 4th year to 7th year,non stop.They are under pressure to succeed by their parents. Football / hurling are side stepped. We set our fixtures for these age groups at the worst time in their education. We need to adopt a more flexible approach , winter leagues, flood light matches, blitzes, smaller sided games , Friday night games. The fixtures have to reflect how these young people manage their time, not the other way around. Schools football is all tidied up by March. By not having players available , teams are unable to field , they are encouraged not to participate.There are so many conflicting situations , county , dev sq. , schools , club. Clubs are bottom of the pile. The best way forward at that age ....is extremely difficult in urban areas .

We need a Belfast action plan focused on late teens. If we wait on Gaelfast we r waiting 10 years plus.Picking up on an earlier post these issues are not debated enough as there seems to be an attitude that if you speak up you are just a slabber

Have you an action plan laid out? Genuine question and what actions are you putting in place at this level?

Slabbers are just people who talk about things, donít do anything and give off about other people actually trying, surely not you

Logged

Anything I post is not the view of the County Board!! Nobody died in the making of this post ;-)

MR2 I just would like the leadership to try something different instead of just doing the same things. My plan would b1) A Belfast league 2) put money into secondary schools coaching not just primary 3) run the league before exams and championship after exams But I donít really care what the plan is as long as there is a plan by those who have put themselves forward to lead

Gaelfest is one plan, leadership has changed very recently so that needs time to flourish. The schools have had varied attempts to improve on their worth but unfortunately not enough kids are interested, so if youíve not got them at primary school level then they are completely lost come secondary school!

A Belfast league? The reason we go all county is to give kids more games, the reason these games arenít played can be as youíve mentioned is schools, exams and so on, one other reason is having games on a Friday night, where travel to Ballycastle is difficult, the sensible fixture should be Belfast games should be during the week while weekend games should be against teams from 30 plus miles away..

how can soccer be played ever weekend on grass pitches from August through to May?! Should we look at changing the dates ?

Rugby at juvenile level is only played at school level competition wise in the north, they donít play for clubs as such until they play for senior clubs or old schools clubs.

At a leadership level putting measures in place quickly to change current systems is harder than we think Iíd imagine. If someone put your proposal in place and it didnít work then where do we go?

The beauty of being a member of a club is you can put these proposals to your club committee and they can bring that to the county.

Logged

Anything I post is not the view of the County Board!! Nobody died in the making of this post ;-)

Gaelfest is one plan, leadership has changed very recently so that needs time to flourish. The schools have had varied attempts to improve on their worth but unfortunately not enough kids are interested, so if youíve not got them at primary school level then they are completely lost come secondary school!

A Belfast league? The reason we go all county is to give kids more games, the reason these games arenít played can be as youíve mentioned is schools, exams and so on, one other reason is having games on a Friday night, where travel to Ballycastle is difficult, the sensible fixture should be Belfast games should be during the week while weekend games should be against teams from 30 plus miles away..

how can soccer be played ever weekend on grass pitches from August through to May?! Should we look at changing the dates ?

Rugby at juvenile level is only played at school level competition wise in the north, they donít play for clubs as such until they play for senior clubs or old schools clubs.

At a leadership level putting measures in place quickly to change current systems is harder than we think Iíd imagine. If someone put your proposal in place and it didnít work then where do we go?

The beauty of being a member of a club is you can put these proposals to your club committee and they can bring that to the county.

There is something worth looking at in the idea of a Belfast league, maybe as a pre regular league competition or at the end of the playing calendar. Even a south Belfast league would be worthwhile as a mini competition

Games are needed. That's why young lads play. Training to match ratio is wrong all over the GAA,, notjust Antrim. Same in schools football, although this is improving.

Am I right in saying that the championships in Antrim are regionalised, with the winners playing eachother in an all county final?Could leagues not be regionalised for a round of fixtures (all teams play each other once,), then a split in the leagues with top half and bottom half playing in respective all county leagues (again all playing the once, twice may not work?) Less travel and more games

The importance of school football cannot be overlooked. It keeps many lads playing and also gets some lads involved who maybe didn't previously play, or weren't club members. It can be difficult for staff to give up their time but it is essential in my eyes to keep these lads interested.